From missed fabs to glass substrates: Intel’s India chapter enters a new phase

India has missed Intel twice.

The first opportunity came in the late 1960s, when Intel co-founder Robert Noyce visited India to explore setting up a semiconductor manufacturing facility. Policy constraints prevented the plan from moving forward. The second came in 2006, when Intel once again evaluated India for a chip fabrication plant, only for policy delays and a slow government response to derail the proposal.

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Nearly six decades later, Intel is back.

This time, the company is not looking to manufacture chips in India. Instead, it seeks to help build a critical layer of the semiconductor ecosystem beneath them.

Intel and US-based 3D Glass Solutions (3DGS) have signed a memorandum of understanding to explore the development of an advanced packaging glass-core substrate facility in Odisha. Intel is expected to contribute technology and process expertise to the project, which remains at an early stage. If it moves beyond the pilot phase, however, it could position India in one of the most strategically important segments of the global semiconductor supply chain.

The foundation beneath the chip

Semiconductor substrates rarely receive the attention given to the chips they support, but they are essential to modern electronics.

"Semiconductor substrates serve as the critical interface between a chip and the external electronic system, providing electrical connectivity, mechanical support, and thermal management. They enable the transfer of power, data, and signals between semiconductor dies and printed circuit boards, ensuring reliable performance in end devices," said Manish Rawat, semiconductor analyst at TechInsights.

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As artificial intelligence accelerators, advanced servers and high-performance computing systems become more complex, the industry is searching for alternatives to conventional organic substrates.

"Conventional organic substrates are made of fibre-reinforced plastics and epoxy resins. While cheap and reliable for standard chips, plastic lacks the physical and thermal strength required for complex AI hardware. Glass substrates replace that plastic core with a sheet of high-purity glass, which fundamentally alters the mechanical and electrical properties of the chip package," explained Danish Faruqui, chief executive officer of Fab Economics.

The shift is increasingly being driven by AI workloads. Compared with resin-based substrates, glass offers superior dimensional stability, flatter surfaces, better signal integrity and improved thermal performance.

"Unlike resin-based organic substrates, glass offers superior dimensional stability, surface flatness, signal integrity, and thermal control. These advantages enable finer interconnects, higher packaging density and more reliable multi-die integration, key requirements for AI accelerators and advanced data-centre processors. Glass also reduces electrical losses, improving data transmission speeds and power efficiency," Rawat said.

A strategic race is underway

Despite the excitement around the technology, glass-core substrates remain in the early stages of commercialisation.

Unlike the established Ajinomoto Build-up Film (ABF) substrate market, dominated by players such as Ibiden and Unimicron, the glass substrate ecosystem is still taking shape. Leadership today is spread across semiconductor companies, substrate manufacturers, speciality materials suppliers and advanced packaging firms.

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"The glass substrate ecosystem is currently dominated by Japan (materials and substrate manufacturing leaders like AGC, Ibiden, Shinko Electric Industries), South Korea (manufacturing commercialisation leader such as Samsung Electro-Mechanics, Absolics), Taiwan (advanced packaging companies including Unimicron and TSMC), and the US (technology and innovation leader such as Intel, 3D Glass Solutions, Corning). These collectively control the critical materials, manufacturing expertise, packaging ecosystems, and technology development required for commercialisation," said Ashwath Rao, industry analyst and researcher at Counterpoint Research.

The Intel-3DGS proposal would place India among a small group of countries attempting to build capabilities in this emerging technology.

Why India and why Odisha?

The timing is significant.

Governments and technology companies are increasingly looking to diversify semiconductor supply chains beyond East Asia. India has emerged as one of the biggest beneficiaries of that shift, aided by incentives under the India Semiconductor Mission and a broader push to develop domestic chip manufacturing and packaging capabilities.

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"Establishing a glass substrate base in India allows western tech firms to derisk their hardware pipelines without compromising on scaling capability," said Faruqui.

The central government currently offers support covering up to 50% of approved semiconductor project costs under the India Semiconductor Mission, with industry participants expecting similar support structures in the programme's next phase.

Within India, Odisha has been quietly positioning itself as an electronics and semiconductor destination. Beyond capital incentives, land rebates and utility subsidies, the state offers two resources that are critical for semiconductor operations: reliable power and water.

"The state boasts a highly stable, industrial power grid and abundant water access, both of which are absolute prerequisites for semiconductor manufacturing lines. Odisha also actively facilitates massive industrial transitions to renewable energy, matching the strict corporate sustainability mandates that Fortune 500 giants like Intel must adhere to globally," Faruqui said.

The anchor effect

For India, the larger opportunity extends beyond a single facility.

According to Rao, the Odisha project is unlikely to resemble traditional substrate manufacturers in Taiwan or Japan. Instead, it could evolve into a broader glass-core substrate manufacturing and advanced packaging ecosystem.

"The Odisha Intel-3DGS plant will not become a glass substrate manufacturer in the same sense as other players but will likely be a glass-core substrate manufacturing plus advanced packaging ecosystem site, not a standalone glass substrate merchant factory like Taiwan/Japan ABF suppliers," Rao said.

If the project scales successfully, it could become an anchor investment that attracts suppliers, equipment makers and packaging companies into the region.

"If it scales beyond the pilot stage, this project can act as a classic anchor investment, helping pull in upstream material suppliers, equipment vendors, and downstream packaging ecosystem players. But this will only happen if three conditions are met, which are credible volume demand (Intel), stable process technology (3DGS), and government-backed infrastructure readiness (Odisha ecosystem build-out)," he added.

The supply-chain implications could be substantial.

Faruqui noted that glass-core substrate production depends heavily on ultra-pure materials that are not currently available domestically.

"Glass core substrate manufacturing is heavily dependent on ultra-pure raw materials for which there is no domestic supply in India," he said.

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As a result, the project could create demand for high-purity glass suppliers such as Corning and Schott, speciality chemical and industrial gas companies, metallurgy providers and advanced packaging equipment vendors, helping expand India's semiconductor ecosystem well beyond a single facility.

India may have missed Intel's fabs. But securing a place in the company's next-generation packaging roadmap could prove just as consequential.

As the semiconductor industry shifts from merely shrinking transistors to reinventing how chips are packaged and connected, glass-core substrates are emerging as a critical technology. If Intel's Odisha bet succeeds, India could find itself participating in one of the most important transitions in the supply chain powering the next generation of AI hardware.